1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a connector potentially employed for a power harness used in eco-friendly cars such as hybrid cars and electric cars especially to transmit a large amount of power, and a wire harness.
2. Description of the Related Art
A power harness is used for connecting between devices such as between a motor and an inverter or between an inverter and a battery in, e.g., a hybrid car or an electric car, which has made significant progress in recent years, to transmit a large amount of power, and a connector in a two-divided structure composed of, e.g., a first connector portion provided with a first connecting terminal(s) as well as a first terminal housing for housing the first connecting terminal(s) and a second connector portion provided with a second connecting terminal(s) connected to the first connecting terminal(s) as well as a second terminal housing for housing the second connecting terminal(s) is provided to one end of the power harness.
In recent years, all components in such eco-friendly cars have been lightened in weight in order to improve energy saving performance, and size reduction is desired as one of effective means of reducing weight.
The present applicant has proposed a laminated-type connector having a laminated structure in which, when a first terminal housing is fitted to a second terminal housing, plural first connecting terminals and plural second connecting terminals are alternately arranged so that surfaces of the first connecting terminals respectively face surfaces of the second connecting terminals to form pairs and plural contact points formed therebetween are sandwiched between the insulating members (See JP-B-4905608).
In the connector of JP-B-4905608, a connecting member is provided to press an insulating member adjacent thereto to collectively fix and electrically connect the plural first connecting terminals to the plural second connecting terminals at each contact point, and an insulating member assembly is formed by connecting the plural insulating members to each other and restricts the insulating members from moving in a fitting direction and a width direction which is perpendicular to a lamination direction of the laminated structure and to the fitting direction.
Such a configuration realizes a small laminated-type connector by eliminating a retaining jig for holding the insulating members and also allows positional misalignment of the insulating members to be prevented even in the case that an excessive force is applied to a cable.
Furthermore, in order to reduce the length of a connector part protruding from a device when the connector is directly connected to the device, the present applicant has proposed an L-shaped laminated-type connector in which two terminal housings are fitted so that the length direction of the first connecting terminals intersects with that of the second connecting terminals.
The related arts to the invention may include JP-B-4905542 as well as JP-B-4905608.